Washington, DC - Purdue University President Mitch Daniels will be a featured speaker at the annual Global Food Security Symposium in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.

The symposium has been convened annually by The Chicago Council on Global Affairs since 2010 to identify opportunities for U.S. leadership in alleviating hunger and poverty through agricultural development.

Daniels, who will give the keynote address during the luncheon, will discuss his experience chairing the Council of Foreign Relations task force on non-communicable diseases in low- and middle-income countries and will discuss the role of American land-grant universities in feeding the world. The keynote begins at noon EDT.

Daniels also will have a blog posting on the symposium's website on the topic of the many ways in which Purdue is engaged in the effort to reduce global hunger. The website is at http://www.thechicagocouncil.org/event/healthy-food-healthy-world-leveraging-agriculture-and-food-improve-global-nutrition.

The Purdue Center for Global Security is among the symposium partners. Gebisa Ejeta, director of the center and 2009 World Food Prize laureate, is a member of a Chicago Council task force that conducted a study urging agriculture and the food system to play greater roles in promoting health and nutrition worldwide. The study will be released during the event.

The symposium, to be held in the Ronald Reagan Building, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., will be streamed live beginning at 8:30 a.m. on the symposium's website.